Well we’ve had a good four days visit with Eric and Kathy.  Caught up on all the news from the last six months and had a few good laughs.  Had Jason, Deb, Ella and Cooper for dinner on Thursday night.  Always lots of fun with them.  Had a preview Christmas dinner as we won’t be here for Christmas with our families.  Ian’s eldest son Gordie arrived on Friday evening to spend the weekend and catch up with his dad. I think they’ve had a good visit.  Ian, Gordie and Jason went to the golf club for lunch on Saturday afternoon so the boys had a good catch-up as well.

Eric and Kathy were on the road before 8:00 am and are now heading to Coos Bay, Oregon to have a visit with their friends Connie and Manny.  They are friends that also go to Mazatlan for the winter.  The weather is beautiful.  Sunny blue skies with lots of colourful leaves on the ground .  Minus six this morning.  But no snow yet so traveling should be good.

I finally finished my packing yesterday.  So now all I have to do is give the house a clean and get some visiting in with friends and family. We are staying at the Hampton Inn across from the airport on Tuesday night and getting a shuttle to the airport at 4:00 a.m.   My favourite time of day! NOT!  Anyway,  we should be able to sleep in until about 3:00 a.m.  Much better than 2:00 a.m.  Can’t wait to walk the beach in Mexico!

 Well although we are not officially on vacation yet I thought I would check and see if I could actually remember how to post on the blog.  So here goes.  We are expecting Eric and Kathy to arrive here on Wednesday for their annual visit before heading off to Mexico.  The difference this year is that we are flying to Mexico on November the 1st so we’ll arrive in Mazatlan before Eric and Kathy.  Too bad for us.  We will miss Eric picking us up at the airport and Kathy waiting with wine and dinner .  Oh well, I guess it will be my turn to welcome them with dinner.  We also have Ian’s son Gordie coming for a visit on the 28th of October.  So it will be a full house.  Should be fun.  So that’s it for now.  Really looking forward to getting outta Dodge!  Let’s see if this actually posts.🤞

The Ibis Budget Hotel Schipol Airport

This is what you get for $240.00 Canadian at the Ibis Hotel.

Saturday, September 14 - Sunday 15 th

Woke up to just a stellar day.  Beautiful blue skies and sunshine. So we spent the day wandering around the town again. It was Market day so that meant lots of people. A cruise ship had also arrived so the town was full.  We took a walk along the water and through the park. Unbeknownst to us there is a lovely sandy beach.  It was pretty busy as well.  Lots of families as well as two weddings on the beach.  We had decided to leave one day early and start heading north to Amsterdam so as not to have    such a long drive on Monday. So we got up on Sunday morning and headed for Ghent where we had visited once before. We took the train from Antwerp to Ghent and had a really nice day there.  So we booked a hotel on the outskirts of Ghent close to the freeway so we could make a quick getaway in the morning. When we got off the freeway in Ghent almost immediately I spotted the

Holiday Inn.  We couldn’t believe how smoothly the day had gone. The area that the hotel was in was called the Loop.  Holiday Inn was wedged in between an IKEA and a huge building called the Expo. So we drove around the Loop about four times following our GPS’s instructions.  By this time the air was blue and we were both sweating with frustration. We did eventually get into the hotel parking lot, check in and then went in search of a restaurant. But seeing as how it was Sunday many places were closed.  So we decided to go back to the hotel and suck it up and pay the big dough for dinner.  Well we had the same darn problem that we had the first time. It sounds impossible but the roads, roundabouts and various exits were so confusing even the GPS gave up. Once again we got back to the hotel. They had a Happy Hour with free apples from six to seven so we thought it was about time we got something for free.  Had a nice time chatting to the bartender (Vasi) who was originally from Sri Lanka.  He has been living in Belgium for 31 years now and it was very interesting talking to him about the EU and all the new immigrants.  Anyway, we finally got to the dining room and ordered a bowl of spaghetti each and shared a bottle of wine.  $95.00 Canadian.  Yikes! And that was the cheapest thing on the menu.
This morning (Monday) we got up to head to Amsterdam.  As expected it took us just over an hour to get on the right freeway going in the right direction.  I thought Ian’s head was going to pop off.  The poor guy. And to top it off he has been suffering for about four days now with his sacroiliac. So sleeping has been tough too. We also ran into roadworks which slowed us down considerably as well.  We wound up getting the car back two hours late.  Luckily they didn’t charge us extra. So now we are tucked into our hotel room looking forward to getting a good night sleep and going home tomorrow. I just can’t express how much we are looking forward to being home.

September 12th, Honfleur

Today we stayed home and just puttered around the place.  Got the laundry done and ran the dishwasher.  I put the dishwasher on eco. It took 2 hours and 45 minutes. I wonder what the sani cycle would take?  The washing machine took 1 hour and 30 minutes.  Apparently it also has a cycle to dry the clothes. We ran that four times . Still not dry.  So everything is spread around the house.  Should be dry before we leave. In the morning while Ian was still sleeping I decided to go for a walk away from the Old Town. I feel I’m getting pretty familiar with the area and so thought I would venture out. So after an hour of walking I figured I was lost.  I was somewhere in the middle of farmland.  So I stopped a truck driver (a driver for the food chain Aldi).  He shrugged his shoulders and pretended not to understand and drove off. He may not speak English but I’m pretty sure he understood when I said “Honfleur?” and pointed to several directions.  Anyway, behind him came an old man and his dog. He couldn’t speak English either but he understood that I was lost and wanted to go to Honfleur.  He offered to drive me.  Now I know that was the wrong thing to do but he looked like Santa Claus and had a really cute dog.  So he drove me right to my corner.  A lovely old man.
In the afternoon we just strolled around Honfleur.  It truly is one of the prettiest places we have ever been.  It rained most of the afternoon so we took refuge in a pub right down by the water.  A cruise ship had come in and dropped off a ton of tourists so the people watching was very interesting. Although I said that it had rained most of the afternoon it was a very soft, fine, warm rain. And even in the rain it was pretty. Later in the afternoon we came home and cleaned up and headed back down the hill to look for a place to have dinner.  The rain had stopped and there was even a bit of sun. We found a little restaurant just a short distance off the waterfront that wasn’t crowded.  As a matter of fact we were the only people in there to begin with.  The food was good and the prices were reasonable.  After dinner we went for another walk around the town.  By now the light was really good for picture taking. Actually couldn’t stop taking pictures.

September 11th Juno Beach

Mix of sun and cloud today.  Showered forecast for later in the day.  Still nice but fall is definitely in the air.  I got out for a nice walk this morning and when I got back Ian was up and looking at the map.    This usually means we are going somewhere.  It’s a bit like the dog when he sees the leash in his masters hand. After our long drive the other day we said the car was not moving until we headed back to Amsterdam but we changed our minds.  We couldn’t drive all the way here and not see Juno Beach. So off we went.  The GPS wouldn’t bring up Juno Beach so we had to find a town that we thought was in the area and go from there.  We were really surprised at how hard it was to find.  Anyway, the town we chose as our destination was Arromanche.  It was a very convoluted drive through fields and farmland.  Very pretty but very narrow roads.  When we arrived in Arromanche we couldn’t believe this beautiful town right on the sea.  There were lots of tourists but it wasn’t overwhelming. I can just imagine what it would be like in high season. So we got the car parked in a lot and started walking.  The beaches are stunningly beautiful.  Miles of soft, white sand.  But looking out at the water and trying to imagine what it must have been like for all those thousands of young men facing German machine guns and trying to take that beach ........well, it’s impossible to imagine. The beach at Arromanche, we think, is actually Omaha Beach, where the Americans landed. So we found a little restaurant and stopped for lunch.  After lunch we were going to go find Juno Beach where our Canadians landed.  It was 14 kilometres further up the beach. So we get back to the car and try to scan our ticket to get out of the parking lot and it doesn’t work. After scratching our heads for a while and wandering around the lot we sound a machine where you are supposed to scan your ticket and pay for it.  Then you go to the exit and scan it again to show that you have paid.  Seems a bit much to me. And of course all the instructions on the machine are in French.  Whatever.........there were two slots in the machine......one for money and one for a credit card.  So Ian mistakenly put the credit card into the money slot.  Oops!  The machine wouldn’t return the card and the button you push for help is a recorded message in French.  Meanwhile a nice young French girl came over to see what our problem was.  She and her partner were having some kind of a problem as well. And she had a phone.  Smart girl.  But when she called the help number it was a recorded message.  And the mailbox was full.  Good system eh?  Anyway, we then paid cash so we could get the car out of the lot.  Ian was prepared to just leave the card in the machine and cancel it.  But this woman suggested we go to the Tourist information to see if they could help.  Well, by the time we found another parking spot, (which we didn’t pay for) and found the Tourist information office,  this lovely young woman had managed to extract our card from the machine and took it to the TI office.  We thought this was too good to be true and figured by the time we got back to our car it would have been towed.  But not this time!  So off we went to Juno Beach where there were way fewer people and no pay parking lots.  Such a sad place. So we walked the beach,  looked at the memorials and took some pictures.

On the way home we stopped at a MacDonald’ to pick up a bite to eat.  Ian was actually excited to be getting a hamburger.  And by this time it was about 7:30.  Now, I don’t know if we have these self service machines in our MacDonald’s at home, but if they do they have lost two customers.  So we tried to order just two hamburgers and two diet cokes.  Shouldn’t be too complicated. And we were able to get English on the machine.  At least for the ordering part.  It switched back to French before completing the order. There were about 8 young people working there and only one came to our assistance.  And he gave us about 15 seconds of his time. So after the second failure we left and found a grocery store.  Cheese and onion sandwich for Ian and store bought salad for me!

Some pictures of Honfleur

Along the waterfront.